Theory: The Principle of Intent

[Emeralis00]

but if the power doesn't return, where does it go? (I am referring to the loss of power that happens to shards when they fuel magic not aligned with their intent)

[Chaos]

Based off this information, being able to uses Feruchemy and Allomancy is dependent on genetics and Spirtual conectivity with the holder of the Shards. This suggests that both of you were sort of right in terms of evolution (genetics) and Intent (Spiritual Connection). As for why Feruchemy developed before Aloomancy, human beings (in the context of the book) were supposed to be designed with equal parts of Ruin and Preservation in them, and most people gravitated towards having that balance in the Spiritual Realm. Then when Preservation gave up his mind to cage Ruin he left the rest of himself in the world to be picked up by man. So along comes Rashek who gains whats left of Preservation. Now you have a man that is heavily influenced by Preservation, and Ruin caged enough that Rashek is able to find those people that are genetically capable of connecting with Preservation and establishing a connection with them on the Spiritual Plane.

I'm not quite sure I follow you. Firstly, humans were designed to have a bit more Preservation in them than Ruin. This seems a little imprecise, that's all.

I might be misunderstanding you, but it also doesn't explain how one can both an Allomancer and Feruchemist.

Definitely espousing the Principle of Intent, but reading through this triggered a slight light bulb I felt like sharing.

On Szeth, everyone seems to feel that he's a Surgebinder without a Spren, and that it is his own strong grip on his oaths giving him his power. I'm not buying that.

There seems to be one consistently overlooked part of Szeth that I think I just picked up on.

His stone. It's said enough, paraphrased anyways, that he has to do whatever the owner of his stone tells him to do, barring the few stipulations.

I think the stone is his spren, and he gains his power by Honoring the oath to serve the one who holds his spren/stone. We've seen enough sprens at this point to know they vary WILDLY from type to type, and have some form of connection to the perceptions of those they're attached to, so what's to say a people who so strongly follow beliefs wouldn't spawn spren who were just as resolute and immovable ("solid as a rock")?

Or maybe the Honorspren is bound inside of the rock, like a fabrial. Or his blade. He says in the prologue that "my blade is cursed enough".

(For information of fabrials, look here.)

I like these ideas a ton.

but if the power doesn't return, where does it go? (I am referring to the loss of power that happens to shards when they fuel magic not aligned with their intent)

Probably dissipate into the Physical Realms? Or something.

[Kuri Shardweaver]

Glad you liked it, Chaos. My brain works in odd ways when I'm dead tired, sometimes it works in my favor XD..

[Earendil]

I just realized that this theory perfectly explains one of the most intriguing mechanics in the books--Allomantic Snapping.

Think about it--of all the magic systems we have learned about, only two have a required event before you can access them. The first was the Elantrians, which may behave differently because the shards that power them were Shattered. Even there, though, it appears that there are ways to access the same power without first becoming an Elantrian.

Allomancy, however, requires that the user "see death and reject it" before they can access the power. No one can use Allomancy at all until they first use it to Preserve their life.

[Chaos]

I just realized that this theory perfectly explains one of the most intriguing mechanics in the books--Allomantic Snapping.

Think about it--of all the magic systems we have learned about, only two have a required event before you can access them. The first was the Elantrians, which may behave differently because the shards that power them were Shattered. Even there, though, it appears that there are ways to access the same power without first becoming an Elantrian.

Allomancy, however, requires that the user "see death and reject it" before they can access the power. No one can use Allomancy at all until they first use it to Preserve their life.

Oh wow, that's interesting.

I don't know if it's 100% accurate, since people can Snap from extreme joy. However, that's much rarer, and the rarity could be explained from a Principle of Intent background. They are "Preserving" their life, so it's the easiest way to Snap.

[Emeralis00]

I have been looking around, and there seems to be a bunch of theories that reference this one. It would be bad if this theory proves untrue.

[Asha'man Logain]

Definitely espousing the Principle of Intent, but reading through this triggered a slight light bulb I felt like sharing.

On Szeth, everyone seems to feel that he's a Surgebinder without a Spren, and that it is his own strong grip on his oaths giving him his power. I'm not buying that.

There seems to be one consistently overlooked part of Szeth that I think I just picked up on.

His stone. It's said enough, paraphrased anyways, that he has to do whatever the owner of his stone tells him to do, barring the few stipulations.

I think the stone is his spren, and he gains his power by Honoring the oath to serve the one who holds his spren/stone. We've seen enough sprens at this point to know they vary WILDLY from type to type, and have some form of connection to the perceptions of those they're attached to, so what's to say a people who so strongly follow beliefs wouldn't spawn spren who were just as resolute and immovable ("solid as a rock")?

I don't have the quote at hand now, but Brandon has said that Szeth is NOT a Knight Radiant not bonded to Spren and he gets his power some other way.

[Chaos]

I don't have the quote at hand now, but Brandon has said that Szeth is NOT a Knight Radiant not bonded to Spren and he gets his power some other way.

That would be an excellent quote to see.

[Thucydides]

That would be an excellent quote to see.

I remember seeing this quote somewhere as well. It was online somewhere but I don't remember where.

[Morderkaine]

From the Good Reads WoK Q&A.

Jay wrote: "Do Szeth and Kaladin both belong to the same order of knights radiant?"

Szeth isn't actually in an order of Knights Radiant. Something different is happening with Szeth that people have already begun to guess. And Kaladin isn't yet a Knight Radiant, but the powers he uses are those of the Windrunners, one of the orders of the Knights Radiant. Szeth is using the same power set. So your phrasing is accurate to that extent.

[mycoltbug]

Nice Job. That's the quote there.

[Silus - Shard of Flame]

I just realized that this theory perfectly explains one of the most intriguing mechanics in the books--Allomantic Snapping.

Think about it--of all the magic systems we have learned about, only two have a required event before you can access them. The first was the Elantrians, which may behave differently because the shards that power them were Shattered. Even there, though, it appears that there are ways to access the same power without first becoming an Elantrian.

Allomancy, however, requires that the user "see death and reject it" before they can access the power. No one can use Allomancy at all until they first use it to Preserve their life.

ARGH! I came this same conclusion while rereading that conversation in TFE today. Way to beat me to it. Self Preservation, yeah? *grumble grumble*

[happyman]

ARGH! I came this same conclusion while rereading that conversation in TFE today. Way to beat me to it. Self Preservation, yeah? *grumble grumble*

Look at it this way: It's a good theory. It's not your fault you got to the internet just a little too late.

This also applies to Hemalurgy. In order to get power from Hemalurgy, you have to be willing to kill somebody. In other words, you have to be closer to Ruin.

Dang. This basic idea is yielding a lot of fruit.

[Thucydides]

I do love this theory but I feel I can't espouse it any longer.

On all of this:

My principle is simple: To interact with the spiritual power of the Shard inside you, it must be in accordance with the Shard's intent. (That is, the name of the Shard. Ruin. Preservation. Endowment. It is what the Shard wants to do. Look at the bottom here for that reference.) I'm going to call it the Principle of Intent, simply because that makes it sound important. Now I simply have to show you how important this principle is.

Let's say that Breath is the Nalthis equivalent of those fragments of Ruin and Preservation on Scadrial. These latent powers of a Shard can be accessed and manipulated. With Preservation's magic, I can do lots of cool things, but one thing I can't do is move that fragment of the soul around. But, I could do such a thing if I was using the right magic system. On Nalthis, Endowment endows. It makes perfect sense that Awakening can move pieces of souls around, because that's Endowment's intent. Indeed, I can do similar things with Hemalurgy, because it is inherently destructive. Ruin ruins. Endowment endows. Preservation preserves.

"But wait, why does Allomancy cause such rapid changes if it's from Preservation? That seems antithetical to Preservation's intent." There was a thread about this on Adonalsium.net, actually, and I couldn't come up with a proper explanation. Now I can. Watch closely, because this is fancy footwork. Think, for a moment, less about the external effects of Allomancy. Brandon's said that powers don't need to have rational explanations, just that they are bound by rules. Is there any particular reason why iron does the Physical Internal power rather than pewter? No, and that's okay.

Instead, let's consider what happens to that piece of Preservation inside you when you utilize Allomancy. Awakening moves spiritual energy, or endows it to something else. This doesn't happen with Preservation. There ought to be some reason why Preservation provides a net gain of energy with Allomancy instead of Awakening's system, and there indeed is. Preservation does preserve, it just preserves the piece of Preservation inside you (and for that matter, every aspect of your body. There is no direct physical cost to Allomancy in the act of burning metals). When you think about it from a Shard level, each Shard has a focus. Ruin and Preservation share a focus in metal. This metal activates some spiritual action, I'd imagine. Lock and key. The metal is the key to all the Metallic Arts. The metal must do something with respect to Preservation, and what's it going to do? With the Principle of Intent, that fragment of Preservation inside you wants to preserve itself, its spiritual energy. It also wants to preserve yourself. So, the only place it receive energy from is some external source, in order to preserve your own energy.

I agree completely.

But this:

Wait a minute. I just got the most brilliant idea ever as I wrote that. Brandon said that Preservation or Ruin could, in principle, fuel any of the Metallic Arts, but he said that it expends power in ways gods are hesitant to do (I can't find the citation right now, but I think it's in the Hero of Ages spoiler thread). Why would it expend energy? Doesn't it all regenerate? No, I think not. Not exclusively. What if a Shard's power only regenerates when the Shard is doing something according to the Shard's intent? Atium is of Ruin, and so using that energy with respect to Ruining something will make it regenerate. The Well put Rashek into severe Preservation mode, making him extremely reactionary. So in a roundabout way, that again is Preservation. That kind of explains why dispersing the power broke Ruin's prison--it was an act not of Preservation, so the power wasn't conserved. Also, if this was true, it makes a heck of a lot more sense why Endowment Returns people, and why he isn't dead from doing so. The power all comes back eventually.

just doesn't seem right to me.

I would say rather, that there are limits to the power that a Shard can access at any given time. Just as our bodies only hold so much energy and after we use it we need to sleep and to eat, just so a Shard can run out of energy, in the moment. However, just as a man who has spent a week working himself to the bone can rest and recover, a Shard who has expended all of it's energy can also rest and recover, but you wouldn't say that the energy the man expended came back to him (sure in a roundabout way you could say it has but you understand my meaning here), instead you would say he got new energy from his food and rest. So don't say that energy comes back when a shard acts according to it's intent, that seems to imply that a Shard has an Absolute amount of energy, and when it acts outside it's intent it loses that energy thus becoming less, FOREVER. Rather say that a Shard only has so much energy at a given time and using it for something other than that Shard's specific intent will be more difficult, and use more energy than doing something in accordance with the intent (not to mention there has to be psychological barrier, the whole "molded to the intent of the Shard thing).

So in our analogy you could say our man is a professional weight lifter, that is what he is best at (his intent). If he goes running that doesn't mean he won't recover the energy he used, but running will be more difficult for him, it will tire him more quickly and to a greater degree, therefore requiring longer and more restful recovery, than if he had done his usual weight training.

That is how I see things, please, point out the errors in my reasoning, there are bound to be a few.

[Chaos]

Thucydides, you reference a major issue with the main theory. In my mind it's the "regeneration problem." I don't agree with your alternative explanation, probably because I don't agree with the Power of Creation paradigm. However, that theory does have the benefit of dealing with the regeneration problem more intuitively than anything I am saying. It's a deep concern to me, absolutely. However, that comment about it in the original topic was sort of a random musing, rather than a firm sentiment, so hopefully I can persuade for you to come back I intend to treat the regeneration problem in more detail once I mull it over a lot.

So! Aside from that major issue, I've wanted to try and do things to verify the Principle of Intent, because it's becoming more and more important to a lot of theorizing. So I asked this:

Allomancy provides many very dramatic effects, which some have noted is not very much like Preservation. Could you walk me through how Allomancy is of Preservation, though it does dramatic, dynamic things? I'm curious whether there is a deeper significance here than Preservation simply needing to be Ruin's opposite. It's a little odd that Preservation would inherently give up its power to fuel Allomancy, because you'd think he would preserve himself, you know? Does that make sense?

(Note, you already know what I think about this incongruity: this theory was designed to explain that. This was just the way of phrasing the question in a consistent manner)

He sort of split the answer, but here it is:

2) One of the 'basics' of the magic in all of the worlds is that the energy of Shards can fuel all kinds of interactions, not just interactions based on their personality/role. I did this because otherwise, the Magics would all be extremely limited.

The 'role' of the Shard has to do with the WAY the magic is obtained, not what it can do. So, in Preservation's case, the magic is a gift--allowing a person to preserve their own strength, and rely upon the strength granted by the magic. While Hemalurgy has a huge cost, ending in net entropy.

3) Yes, there is, but I can't talk about it now.

4) Preservation, as a Shard, is about preserving life, people, and the like. Not about self. No more than Ruin is about destroying self, or Cultivation is about growing herself.

Here are a couple of things that can expand our understanding of the Shards, but the bolded part is especially useful for the Principle of Intent, because I essentially said that on the first page.

Brandon's words solidify the Principle more soundly. The method which magic is obtained is directly related with a Shard's (or Shards') intent.

Which really sounds a lot like how Surgebinding works, since you need that honorable "bond" to make Surgebinding work. That fits with this idea exactly, which I had said on the original post, essentially.

Okay. I didn't mean to brag there, though I am pretty dang excited about this.

The Principle of Intent topic needs to be revised and streamlined, but with this quote, I think we can say that its basic idea--the core of the theory--is fact.

That quote does have other interesting things about Shards' intents, which are very useful clarifications for greater cosmere theories. I'd rant about it, but I'll mull it over for a little while.

[Argent]

Fantastic theory, Chaos! The core of it explains a lot of what is going on throughout the various Shardworlds we've encountered and it does it in the consistent manner we are used to seeing in Brandon's works. My only concern is that, maybe, you are taking it too far; some of the previous comments seem to imply a similar thing. Usage of the Shards' powers does look like it requires intentions similar to the Shards' natures. If I were to play it safe, though, I would stop there. The power conservation/depletion mechanic you describe for Scadrial is sound, but it seems to only kind of hold for Nalthis, and Roshar is too young of a world to offer sufficient evidence. Though it's probably worth it to discuss those things further. Do we know of any Surgebinders/Knights who lost their powers? Do we see anything about Endowment's regeneration or depletion of power? How does the change in appearance among the Returned (and their offspring) play with the system?

I need to think about all this for a while, and it's way too late to do it now. But I think there is potential for more discussion. Perhaps we can discover even more fundamentals about the Cosmere's magic; or we can solidify the theory as one not so broad, but more verified.

[Zas678]

The only one that I can think of is the Knights Radiant giving up their Shardplates and Shardblades. When they give it up, they are still lit up. But when people who are not Knights Radiant and have (presumably) not made the same promises that Kinght Radiants ahve, the Shard Plates grow dim. Power leaves them. To use Alcatraz's definition, it seems like they stop becoming magic, and start becoming Technology. That is, things that anyone can use.

[Chaos]

My only concern is that, maybe, you are taking it too far; some of the previous comments seem to imply a similar thing. Usage of the Shards' powers does look like it requires intentions similar to the Shards' natures. If I were to play it safe, though, I would stop there. The power conservation/depletion mechanic you describe for Scadrial is sound, but it seems to only kind of hold for Nalthis, and Roshar is too young of a world to offer sufficient evidence. Though it's probably worth it to discuss those things further. Do we know of any Surgebinders/Knights who lost their powers? Do we see anything about Endowment's regeneration or depletion of power? How does the change in appearance among the Returned (and their offspring) play with the system?

I do feel I took it too far. Valid criticism. And the regeneration problem is a big issue.

[Zas678]

So are we saying that instead of a cognitive intention, it is now a mechanical intention?

[Chaos]

So are we saying that instead of a cognitive intention, it is now a mechanical intention?

I'm not sure what you mean.

[Zas678]

So instead of my meaning being important to allow for the intent, it is really how the magic actually works that allows for the intent.

In other words, it's the how that matters, not the why. You could use a Steel Push to save a life or end a life, but you are still Preserving your own power.

[happyman]

So instead of my meaning being important to allow for the intent, it is really how the magic actually works that allows for the intent.

In other words, it's the how that matters, not the why. You could use a Steel Push to save a life or end a life, but you are still Preserving your own power.

This is how I understand Brandon's statements. Magic systems would be far too hobbled if they could only act in accordance with the Shard's intent at all times.

It also relates to Hemalurgy. Theoretically, you could use Hemalurgy to save a city from destruction, at the "small" price of 8-16 mistings and your own sanity. The method of accessing the power destroys things overall, but once it has been accessed, it can be used for preservation or destruction.

Doubtless the same thing applies to Aon Dor. Whatever shard gives access to the Dor, once the power is present, it can be used for an enormous number of things, some of which probably go against the Shard's intent, or are neutral with respect to it.

[Chaos]

Yes, exactly.

[WeiryWriter]

I really like this theory, but I have some comments.

First the regeneration problem. What if no matter how a Shard's power is used, ie Ruin fueling Allomancy, it is still regenerated. That regeneration occurs at the same rate no matter how the power is used. When a Shard fuels a magic aligned to another Shard more energy is required. Sort of like the magic system has a resistance to it. So eventually the Shard will get its power back but in the short term it is weaker than if it had powered a magic system aligned to Itself.

This comment relates to Shardic Sentience theory. I do believe that the humans on all of the Shardworlds were created by their respective Shards and that their sentience is due to a "spark" of the Shards inside of them. I also think that Spark may be what makes them sentient but does not give them access to the magic systems. Those do develop over time. Actually no the magic systems exist as soon as the Shards arrived on the planet. What evolved over time is people's ability to use them. Brandon has said the reason Feruchemy was unique to the Terris is that they did not breed outside of their population so the "mutation" that allowed Feruchemy did spread around like Allomancy (which did exist before Rashek went to the Well, it was just considerably rarer). The Allomantic mutation spread but not in any concentration before Lerasium (sp?). The reason BioChroma is still new is because its mutation only occured recently.

Edit: These mutations occur in the spiritual DNA not the physical DNA.

Edited November 23, 2011 by WeiryWriter

[Chaos]

I really like this theory, but I have some comments.

First the regeneration problem. What if no matter how a Shard's power is used, ie Ruin fueling Allomancy, it is still regenerated. That regeneration occurs at the same rate no matter how the power is used. When a Shard fuels a magic aligned to another Shard more energy is required. Sort of like the magic system has a resistance to it. So eventually the Shard will get its power back but in the short term it is weaker than if it had powered a magic system aligned to Itself.

This comment relates to Shardic Sentience theory. I do believe that the humans on all of the Shardworlds were created by their respective Shards and that their sentience is due to a "spark" of the Shards inside of them. I also think that Spark may be what makes them sentient but does not give them access to the magic systems. Those do develop over time. Actually no the magic systems exist as soon as the Shards arrived on the planet. What evolved over time is people's ability to use them. Brandon has said the reason Feruchemy was unique to the Terris is that they did not breed outside of their population so the "mutation" that allowed Feruchemy did spread around like Allomancy (which did exist before Rashek went to the Well, it was just considerably rarer). The Allomantic mutation spread but not in any concentration before Lerasium (sp?). The reason BioChroma is still new is because its mutation only occured recently.

Edit: These mutations occur in the spiritual DNA not the physical DNA.

That's funny because you pretty much echoed my current feelings on the regeneration problem. I've thought about it a lot since I posted this theory. I think it's likely that either takes more power to go against its intent, or it takes longer for that power to regenerate, or both. (I need to make a dedicated Regeneration Problem topic...)

That's an interesting way to think about how magic developed that hasn't been said on the forums. I don't know if I completely buy it, but I need to meditate on it. If that is truly how magic developed, that would be a major paradigm shift in our thinking...